Covid, the "lockdowns" etc.

[HappyDaze]

Dude, your hot take was debunked. You repeating it without ever bothering to address the problem with your claim is persuading nobody anymore. You were wrong to think vaccines always stopped the virus they target. All of them had rates of effectiveness which were less than 100% and all of them had effectiveness decrease over time. It's true that the Covid vaccines have their rate of effectiveness decrease faster than many other vaccines, but that doesn't make them "not a vaccine".

Traditionally, vaccines caused inoculation by introducing into the immune system a weakened version of a disease, causing an immune response to that disease. These mRNA injections do not do that.

Also, I think you'd be hard pressed to offer any evidence that they ever worked in the first place. The original trials only had a difference in deaths from the control group to the mRNA group of 1 person - and then they gave the control group the vaccine anyway, so we can't even compare the two groups over a period of time to see if that protection lasts (such that it is) lasted beyond the few weeks looked at in the trial.

To make matters worse, they immediately changed how they test for COVID in vaccinated individuals (they are tested less and at lower cycle thresholds, so fewer false positives - which number in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, when you consider the base rate fallacy/false positive paradox). Having two different testing requirements makes it literally impossible to make a direct apples to apples comparison between the effectiveness of vaccinated vs unvaccinated in real world situations. They also don't count you as vaccinated until after 14 days after your second shot, so if you get sick and die of COVID 3 days after your second shot (which happens more than they want to admit), you are counted as an unvaccinated death.

So, how are they finding that the vaccines are becoming less effective? They are simply comparing data now with data before, then normalizing it to account for the difference in the number of vaccinations. But the problem with that approach is that COVID happens in waves which hits in different territories at different times, and if you normalize data over multiple months, you are comparing very different circumstances as if they were equal. In some cases, there is a very noticeable improvement early on, but it is generally only slightly statistically significant, and can easily be explain by the placebo effect (just like long COVID can largely be explained by the nocebo effect).

So, I could easily argue that the COVID shots never made a difference at all (ignoring all the negative side effects like heart attacks, blood clots, and deaths - almost all counted as unvaccinated because they generally happen within two weeks of getting a shot).

So, if you get a shot that literally makes no difference at all, does that still count as a vaccine?

Who are the "they" that are using different testing between vaccinated and unvaccinated people? Is it specific to one study, one region, or is this a general statement?

[Zelen]

The idea of 100% effective vaccines is silly, because the human immune system isn't 100% effective. Nevertheless, most vaccines are pretty good at what they do -- help people's immune systems fight off illness.

I will say that most vaccines that are widely accepted are demonstrated to be safer & better than the current crop of injections being offered for SarsCov-2. It's utterly mind-boggling that the huge spike in adverse events has been completely ignored. The current injections don't even meet the guidelines set forth by the FDA, namely >50% efficacy and providing more than 6 months of protection.

The problem here comes in with the neurotic and insane belief that you can prevent people from all harm from sickness and death. This is not possible. The totalitarian's "If it saves even one life..." rhetoric gives them unlimited authority to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Too many smart people are getting played by basic emotional manipulation.

This is why I think it's important to specifically point towards natural immunity, and why it's so mind-boggling that natural immunity continues to be ignored. The injections people are taking have no mechanism to protect people, at all, without the human immune system response. They are literally synthesizing a harmful pathogen in your body, and hoping that your immune system figures it out quickly enough to negate the harm. Anyone who denies natural immunity is basically like a 40k Ork Boy who thinks a red box with wheels goes fast, even lacking the engine.

[Squidi]

Who are the "they" that are using different testing between vaccinated and unvaccinated people? Is it specific to one study, one region, or is this a general statement?

That is specifically a change in CDC guidelines for testing the vaccinated with PCR tests. Apparently, they changed back it last month to recommend that the vaccinated get tested even if not presenting symptoms after coming into contact with a COVID-positive person.

That change comes after the federal health agency, in May, eased its initial testing guidance, saying vaccinated people face very little risk of serious illness and don't need to be tested in most cases even if exposed to someone who was sick. The thinking then was that vaccinated people also weren't likely to spread it to others.

But that's changed. The agency says it's reversing that guidance because of the more contagious delta variant, which now accounts for most coronavirus infections.

[Squidi]

The idea of 100% effective vaccines is silly, because the human immune system isn't 100% effective.

Actually, natural exposure to measles will give you lifelong immunity that you can transfer to infants through breast feeding, and which has been shown to defend against certain types of cancer. Immunity gains from the MMR is only about 70% effective and wanes after about 7 years (also lacks the other benefits of natural immunity - yay, cancer!) So, the human immune system can be 100% effective, but the way that we do vaccinations (using adjuvants to inspire a stronger immune response from an inactivated virus) is considerably less effective.

Nevertheless, most vaccines are pretty good at what they do -- help people's immune systems fight off illness.

Generally speaking, they aren't nearly as good as we think they are, and in every case, natural immunity is absolutely superior. Take the chicken pox vaccine. If you get the chicken pox as a kid, you get lifelong immunity. Chicken pox is also not a particularly dangerous disease to children, just uncomfortable. However, if you get the chicken pox as an adult, it becomes shingles and can be more dangerous with a greater chance for serious injury or even death. The chicken pox vaccine, like the MMR vaccine, wanes as you get older, meaning that you could be setting yourself up for a case of shingles to avoid a case of chicken pox.

Most of the serious diseases were dying off long before vaccinations were introduced, and there's several diseases like scarlet fever and (I think) cholera had all but disappeared without a vaccine at all due to clean water and better diets... and indoor plumbing.

I will say that most vaccines that are widely accepted are demonstrated to be safer & better than the current crop of injections being offered for SarsCov-2. It's utterly mind-boggling that the huge spike in adverse events has been completely ignored. The current injections don't even meet the guidelines set forth by the FDA, namely >50% efficacy and providing more than 6 months of protection.

If you look into the polio epidemic, you'll find that they used similarly creative accounting methods to make it appear as if the vaccine was eradicating polio (it was actually the opposite, and the Salk vaccine gave hundreds of thousands of kids polio). But what they did was change how they measured a positive polio case. It was any case of paralytic polio was counted as polio, but they changed it to any case of paralytic polio that lasted more than 30 days. Since most cases cleared up in that time, especially thanks to the invention of physical therapy from Nurse Kenny (a very interesting story if anyone bothers to look it up), this dropped the number of cases down to almost nothing. Yay, the vaccine worked!

So, they've been lying about vaccine effectiveness for as long as vaccines have been around. The only difference is that this time, you have an internet which exposes these practices in real time. Imagine if you only had CNN/CDC to get your news from. Imagine how misinformed you'd be on everything COVID.

[Shasarak]

The idea of 100% effective vaccines is silly, because the human immune system isn't 100% effective. Nevertheless, most vaccines are pretty good at what they do -- help people's immune systems fight off illness.

The human immune system is pretty much 100% effective because it is an overlapping system of defenses protecting the 10% of your human cells from the 90% of your bacterial cells.

And even when you do get "sick" that is just the side effects of your immune system continuing to protect you from infection.

[Mistwell]

We're looking for a better situation and not a perfect situation. If you are vaccinated, you are 1) less likely to get the virus, and 2) infectious for a shorter period of time if you do get it. Since we don't have the testing resources to test everyone every week, applying those testing resources to those who are more likely to get the virus and more likely to be contagious with the virus for a longer period of time is a smart application of limited resources.

Bolded part by me. You do realize that means it's not a vaccine, right? Vaccines do not just make it 'less likely'.

Yes, they do. Even the measles vaccine doesn't provide 100% immunity. The covid vaccines aren't nearly as effective as many of the traditional childhood vaccines, but they're still vaccines.

Ah, that would be why the CDC stealth-edited the definition of 'vaccine'?

Just because they call it something doesn't necessarily make it so.

Dude, your hot take was debunked. You repeating it without ever bothering to address the problem with your claim is persuading nobody anymore. You were wrong to think vaccines always stopped the virus they target. All of them had rates of effectiveness which were less than 100% and all of them had effectiveness decrease over time. It's true that the Covid vaccines have their rate of effectiveness decrease faster than many other vaccines, but that doesn't make them "not a vaccine".

So, what is it? An ineffective vaccine?

It's more effective than some vaccines and less effective than others. It's pretty good at reducing your risk of hospitalization and death, but it fades quicker than a polio vaccine for example. It does seem more effective than a flu vaccine though. So it's "pretty good" but not "awesome" in terms of vaccines I'd say.

[KingCheops]

Traditionally, vaccines caused inoculation by introducing into the immune system a weakened version of a disease, causing an immune response to that disease. These mRNA injections do not do that.

Also, I think you'd be hard pressed to offer any evidence that they ever worked in the first place. The original trials only had a difference in deaths from the control group to the mRNA group of 1 person - and then they gave the control group the vaccine anyway, so we can't even compare the two groups over a period of time to see if that protection lasts (such that it is) lasted beyond the few weeks looked at in the trial.

All of this is a part of my hesitancy and why I'm waiting on Novavax.

[Squidi]

It does seem more effective than a flu vaccine though.

The do some creative math to calculate vaccine effectiveness. Basically, they take unvaccinated people who get a disease, subtract the vaccinated that get the disease, then divide by the unvaccinated people who get the disease.

So, for example 100 people in control group get the disease, 50 in the vaccinated group. (100-50)/100 = 50% effectiveness. But that's the relative effectiveness. What they don't tell you is that 100 people in the control group which was 12,000 people (or 100/12000 = 0.8%) and 50 in the vaccinated group of equal size (50/12000 = 0.4%). This means the absolute effectiveness of the vaccine is actually only 0.8% - 0.4%, or 0.4%. See? Magic. 0.4% turns into 50%. Basically, 1 out of every 240 people who would've got the flu otherwise, is suggested to not get the flu due to the that flu shot.

And that's kind of an extreme example, because most diseases don't tend to have that high a prevalence rate. With the flu (and with COVID), you are more likely looking at numbers in the tens, not hundreds. The reason you can see something like 75% relative effectiveness isn't because the vaccine is stopping tons and tons of illnesses, but because the control group had 4 illnesses and the vaccinated group had 1.

Generally speaking, most flu vaccines have an absolute effectiveness of about 1% to 2% - and that's with fudging some numbers (they don't count people who get the flu within the first few days of getting the flu shot - sound familiar?). Most of the time, flu vaccines aren't even built for the dominant strain of the flu going around, so the actual real world effectiveness approaches 0%. You are more likely to get the flu from your flu shot than prevent it. 'Struth.

And when they tell you stuff like "it doesn't stop the flu, but it makes the symptoms better", they are talking out their ass. You can't actually measure something like that. They can measure hospitalizations and the like, but that's included in the effectiveness number. They aren't sending out questionnaires asking what their symptoms feel like on a scale of 1 to 10. That's basically made up, intended to cover their ass for when people get the flu shot and still get the flu. "Well, at least I had the flu shot to soften the symptoms" - it's all bull. If you watch carefully, you can watch this happen in real time every flu season.

What I've said in the past year is that we have a data problem in this country. Math is presented without context, if they bother presenting it at all. Often, you need to go find the studies themselves and find the data in the chart on page 17, behind the sign saying "Beward of the leopard".

Anyway, the number one thing to watch out for is percentages. They are the biggest way Big Pharma lies, and a large part of why we ultimately ended up locking down. And when they say something like 75% of adults are vaccinated - that's a lie too. Just read an article that said that they believe over a million people have gotten a third shot, meaning that's a million fewer shots that went into an unvaccinated person.

[Kiero]

  Since people with the vax can get covid...wouldnt it make more sense to test everyone?

Why does it make sense to test anyone at all? The entire premise is nonsense, even before you start to get into how useless the tests are.

My mind boggles how easily people have accepted that the world somehow changed in 2020 and the way we lived before then is now gone.

Honestly hate the fact wearing masks was politicized by the left and ridiculed by the right. Common sense, remains common sense. Wearing a mask certainly has perks. They may not be what they're all cracked up to be, still. In a time where we are supposed to be united we are divided and distracted by things that shouldn't be a distraction in the first place. First world problems, I guess.

They had to be "politicised" because wearing a piece of fabric in front of your face does fuck all. It's the only way to get morons who are susceptible to coercion to do as they're told.

Boys aged 12-15 have 1/6200 chance of cardiac AE after injection


Risk of this one type of side effect is statistically greater than the risk of hospitalization from SarsCov-2.

Precisely why they're not coming anywhere near my children with this jab. Even aside from the fact that they don't need it.

I'm so glad my children are old enough to have had all their childhood vaccinations, and no one is going to be able to try to sneak a covid jab on them when they're having a genuine immunisation.

When everyone is wearing a mask the unvaccinated also tend to wear a mask. I think it's like everything else in life. If peer pressure is applied, most people do that thing.

Nope, don't own a mask, have never worn one, will never wear one. Not everyone is a spineless coward who does what they're told just because everyone else is doing it. Nor did I "stay at home" because we were told to.

All of this is a part of my hesitancy and why I'm waiting on Novavax.

Why are you "waiting on" any jab at all? Are you over 65 and obese?

[dkabq]

Went to dinner last night. Total time in the restaurant = ~90 minutes. Total time wearing a mask = ~20 s (the time to get from the door to the table, and from the table to the door). By the time we left, every table was seated. Nobody (except for the wait-staff) was wearing a mask regardless of whether they were eating/drinking or not. The tables were spaced about 6' table-center to table-center.

If you buy the argument that masks matter (which is what is being pushed by my state's Dear Leader), then everyone should have been wearing masks except when putting food/drink into their mouth. But here is the real irony, when standing outside waiting to get into the restaurant, everyone (but me) was wearing a mask. But as soon as everyone reached their magical anti-covid table the masks immediately came off -- because SCIENCE!(tm).

Fucking clown shoes.

[Squidi]

Went to dinner last night.

How many grandmas did you kill?

[Shrieking Banshee]

Fucking clown shoes.

Similar deal with airplanes. Everbody wears a mask at all times, except mealtimes - when they all come off at once.

[DM_Curt]

Went to dinner last night. Total time in the restaurant = ~90 minutes. Total time wearing a mask = ~20 s (the time to get from the door to the table, and from the table to the door). By the time we left, every table was seated. Nobody (except for the wait-staff) was wearing a mask regardless of whether they were eating/drinking or not. The tables were spaced about 6' table-center to table-center.

If you buy the argument that masks matter (which is what is being pushed by my state's Dear Leader), then everyone should have been wearing masks except when putting food/drink into their mouth. But here is the real irony, when standing outside waiting to get into the restaurant, everyone (but me) was wearing a mask. But as soon as everyone reached their magical anti-covid table the masks immediately came off -- because SCIENCE!(tm).

Fucking clown shoes.

Hence the meme. "Why don't we replace the school desks with restaurant tables? That way, the kids can take off their masks once they sit down."

[Pat]

Alternately, just start each class with a short prayer to St. Floyd. Last year, the medical establishment reassured us that covid is repelled by social justice.

[Mistwell]

My friend's mother just died last week. Not from covid.

Even with her heart rate nearly zero, and barely breathing, and coding, the ambulance had to wait over 2 hours to get into the hospital. They were rendering emergency life saving compressions on her waiting in the parking lot to get in during that time.  And no, that is NOT NORMAL for our hospitals here. Pre-covid that didn't happen.

She unfortunately died. And the funeral cannot be until October because of the massive backlog of burials. And no, that is NOT NORMAL for cemeteries here. Pre-covid you'd be buried within a week or less.

But yes, please continue to pretend the number of people dying is all some conspiracy of manufactured statistics.